
DDRESSES AT THE 
UNVEILING OF A 
MEMORIAL JULY 4, 1914, 
COMMEMORATING THE 
DISCOVERY OF COHASSET 



IN 1614 BY 



CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH 




COHASSET, MASS. 

PUBLISHED BY THE TOWN 

1914 




LAWRENCE WHARF AND TOWN LANDING 




THE MEMORIAL 



Addresses 

at the Unveiling of a Memorial 
July 4, 1914 

commemorating the 

Discovery of Cohasset 

in 1614 by 

Captain John Smith 




« » 



Cohasset, Mass. 

Published by the Town 

1914 



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CgG 



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ANNUAL TOWN MEETING 
March 9, 1914 

Under Article 70 of the warrant it was 

"Voted that the Town appropriate the sum of five 
hundred dollars for the purpose of erecting a boulder 
and tablet to commemorate the discovery of Cohasset 
in 1614 by Captain John Smith, said sum to be taken 
from Corporation tax." 

Lawrence Wharf, the location of the memorial, 
was purchased by the Town for a public landing in 
1907. Float stages, an ornamental shelter with seats, 
a drinking fountain and other facilities have been added 
and the locality beautified with lawns and shrubs. 



01 > 






INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS OF MR. HARRY E. 
MAPES, CHAIRMAN OF SELECTMEN 

We are assembled here this morning for the purpose 
of carrying out the feature of our Fourth of July celebra- 
tion, namely, the unveiling of the tablet to commemorate 
the discovery of Cohasset by Captain John Smith three 
centuries ago. I had prepared an elaborate and lengthy 
speech at this time, but after viewing the parade this 
morning, I have mixed Captain John Smith up with the 
fire department, Indians, pretty girls, etc., to such an 
extent that I think I had better leave the historical and 
commemorative address to other gentlemen. In bringing 
about this event, one of your citizens has been very in- 
strumental. He has worked very hard to bring this about 
and he deserves great credit for the success, and it gives 
me great pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Oliver H. Howe. 

ADDRESS BY DR. OLIVER H. HOWE 

Mr. Chairman, Honorable Board of Selectmen, Ladies and 
Gentlemen: 
The occasion of this memorial recalls one of the most 
picturesque and interesting characters in our early colonial 
history. Captain John Smith. Captain Smith was born 
at Willoughby, Lincolnshire, England, in 1579. Early 
in life he entered military service in the Netherlands, 
fighting for the independence of the Dutch. Later, in 
Hungary and Transylvania, he fought against the Turks 
and was captured and sold into slavery. Making his 
escape, he reached England in time to join the expedi- 
tion under command of Christopher Newport to estab- 
lish the colony in Virginia which settled at Jamestown 
in 1607. As a member of this colony his explorations 
of Chesapeake Bay and adjacent waters were notable 
geographic achievements, but the genius and energy 
with which he obtained supplies for the starving colony 
and provided for its defense, saved it more than once 
from extinction and earned for him the election of 



president of the colony in 1608. His adventures, includ- 
ing the incident in which his life was saved by Pocahontas, 
were of a most thrilling nature. 

Returning to England, he was chosen, in 1614, by a 
company of London merchants to command an expedition 
to the coast of New England. They arrived in two ships 
upon the coast of Maine, near the island of Monhegan, 
hoping to engage in whaling or to discover mines of gold 
or copper. Failing in both these pursuits, they naturally 
turned to fishing and fur trading. The fur season had 
gone by and fishing was only moderately successful. 
Leaving his ships and their crews to continue the fishing, 
Captain Smith, with eight men in a small boat, proceeded 
to explore the coast southward and to make a detailed 
examination of all the shores and islands between the 
mouth of the Penobscot and Cape Cod. Since he was in 
a small boat, he could readily enter harbors and the mouths 
of rivers. Carefully observing the nature of the country, 
its people and products, and trading with the Indians, he 
wrote a detailed account of the whole, in which he men- 
tioned the names of forty Indian villages. He also made 
a map of the coast, which was wonderfully accurate, con- 
sidering the meagre facilities at his command. 

When he reached Boston, then known to the Indians 
by the name "Massachusits," Captain Smith declared it 
to be "the paradise of all those parts, for here are many 
isles planted with Come, Groves, Mulberies, salvage 
gardens and good harbours." 

Following a little farther southward, he writes : *' We 
found the people in those parts very kinde, but in their 
fury no lesse valiant . . . and at Quonahasit falling out 
there but with one of them, he with three others crossed 
the Harbour in a Canow to certaine rockes whereby wee 
must passe, and there let flie their arrowes for our shot, 
till we were out of danger, yet one of them was slaine and 
another shot through his thigh." 

Smith's mention of Quonahasit in the narrative oc- 
curs midway between the localities now known as Boston 
and Plymouth. A search of all the Indian names con- 
nected with the New England coast fails to show any other 
that bears any resemblance to Quonahasit or with which 
it may have been confused. These facts, taken in con- 





I 



nection with the appearance of the name " Conyhassett " 
in its proper place upon the Winthrop map of 1633, show 
that it was our Cohasset harbor into which this party of 
explorers came. We do not know the day, or even the 
month, but it was in the summer of 1614. Captain Smith 
was then thirty-four years of age, although his previous 
travels and exploits might easily have filled a long life- 
time. 

His account clearly states that he entered the harbor 
and he evidently landed, for there was time for a quarrel 
to occur and for the Indians to plan an ambush and reach 
it by crossing the harbor in a canoe. 

So far as we know, these were the first white men to 
set foot in Cohasset. Others, notably Verazzano in 1524, 
Stephen Pring in 1603 and Samuel de Champlain in 1605, 
had sailed by this coast in their ships, and, provided wea- 
ther conditions and daylight were favorable, these voyag- 
ers, and perhaps others, may have gotten glimpses of our 
shores from a distance. We have no knowledge, however, 
that any of these entered our harbor or mentioned the 
locality by name. 

Some writers are disposed to throw doubt upon the 
writings of Captain Smith, regarding them as exaggerated 
and boastful. The eminent historian, John Fiske, how- 
ever, after most careful research, considers these doubts 
unsupported, and adduces the accuracy of Smith's maps, 
declaring his maps of Virginia to be "a living refutation 
of John Smith's detractors." He instances also his truth- 
ful portrayal of the life and character of the American 
Indian. He commends Smith's keenness of observation 
and his rare sagacity and leadership and reminds us that 
"in general, his comrades spoke of him in terms of strong 
admiration and devotion." The story of Pocahontas was 
never doubted during Smith's lifetime nor for more than 
two centuries afterward. Fiske regards it as "precisely 
in accordance with Indian usage" and further says that 
"without it the subsequent relations of the Indian girl 
with the English colony become incomprehensible." 

It was, therefore, no ordinary leader who piloted his 
boat's crew into this harbor three hundred years ago. 
We might picture the scene as follows: The same surf 
broke in spray upon the rocks, but the shores presented a 

7 



far different aspect from that with which we are familiar. 
The forest, massive in its continuity and its primeval 
growth, was broken at rare intervals by Indian cornfields 
or an occasional wigwam, while here and there a thin 
column of smoke arose from a smouldering camp fire. 
No craft were visible except a few canoes drawn up on a 
beach near the head of the cove. As the white men 
entered the harbor, timid groups of Indians viewed their 
approach with the greatest wonder. The Englishmen 
stepped firmly upon the shore, feeling a sovereign right, 
which was instinctive rather than actual. Displaying 
glass beads and other bright trinkets, the Indians readily 
exchanged for them glossy skins of beaver, fox and mar- 
ten, as well as fruits and other products of their agriculture. 

All went well until a sailor offered some insult or at- 
tempted some rascality. No blows were struck, but the 
sullen look upon the Indian's face foreboded trouble. He 
disappeared from the group and with three other Indians, 
entered a canoe and silently paddled to Hominy Point, 
where, concealed among the rocks, they awaited Smith's 
party as they sailed out of the harbor, attacking them with 
a shower of arrows. The white men had more formidable 
weapons and replied with powder and ball. The foremost 
Indian swayed, staggered and fell to the ground dead, 
while another uttered a piercing yell of pain. The con- 
flict of races had begun. The Indian hunting grounds 
had been disturbed ; this was the first blood shed by white 
men in Cohasset. 

This incident, besides being the first page of our 
history, represents the first contact between the pri- 
meval people and civilization. It is a type of what had 
been going on for more than a century, all the way from 
Labrador to Cape Horn. We may bewail the fate of the 
red man who was gradually pushed out of and away from 
his possessions, until now his whole race is threatened with 
loss of identity if not extinction. We cannot condone his 
treatment by the enlightened races; it is a long record of 
deceit, injustice and cruelty. Nevertheless, it is plain 
that Divine Providence did not intend these spacious 
continents to remain for all time mere forest hunting 
grounds penetrated by a few slender trails and echoing 
only to the shrill cries of birds and the war-whoop of the 

8 



Indian. Barbarism was to be replaced by civilization. 
The treasures of the earth were to be brought out and 
everything put to enlightened uses. The lesser must give 
place to the greater, so that the land should serve the 
greatest number and fulfil the highest purposes. It 
meant giving a whole hemisphere to civilization. Here 
was the greatest process of development in the history 
of the world. 

It is fitting, therefore, that we should erect this 
memorial to the first event of our history in this three 
hundredth anniversary year. While we realize the mo- 
mentous significance of what it typifies, let us remember 
the cost of the struggle, which meant the driving out of 
the red man. It is incumbent on us, therefore, to use 
these great resources so honestly and so wisely as to 
justify the dispensation secured at such a cost. 

Careful search among historical sources reveals the 
fact that Captain John Smith was a man of whom we 
may well be proud. His genius, his resourcefulness under 
difficulties, his indomitable will, entitle him to our ad- 
miration. Parkman calls him a hero. Fiske further con- 
siders him a man essentially noble and of heroic mould. 
The same testimony is given by members of the starving 
Jamestown colony, who write as follows: " That in all his 
proceedings, he made justice his first guide and experience 
his second, ever hating baseness, sloth, pride and indignity 
more than any dangers; that never allowed more for 
himself than for his soldiers with him : that upon no danger 
would send them where he would not lead himself; that 
would never see us want what he either had, or could by 
any means get us; that would rather want than borrow 
or starve than not pay; that loved actions more than 
words and hated falsehood and cozenage more than death; 
whose adventures were our lives and whose loss, our 
deaths." 

The treasures of our continent were sought by men 
of three principal nations — Spanish, French and English. 
Each had opportunity to display its methods, and each 
underwent a test of its national character in the presence 
of prosperity. The general result of the colonial history 
in North America has shown the Englishman best fitted 
to occupy and to govern. It was an Englishman who 





entered this harbor three hundred years ago. His race 
was not dismayed by the hostility of the Indians. He 
carried back no untrue or unfavorable report of this land 
of promise, but wrote with such courage and enthusiasm 
that his early accounts published in 1616 undoubtedly 
bore fruit in encouraging the settlement of Plymouth, of 
Salem, of Boston and of our own Hingham. We may well 
rejoice, then, that so early in colonial history our harbor 
and our rocky shore bore a part, and it is proper that we 
should commemorate an early link in the chain of these 
events — events that in time have produced the greatest 
nation the world has ever seen. 

MR. MAPES' SECOND INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 

The fact that Captain John Smith discovered Coh as- 
set being established beyond doubt, your committee con- 
sidered it proper that the man who discovered John Smith 
should address you today. This discovery was made 
when writing up your town history, which undoubtedly 
the majority of you have in your homes, and as further 
remarks from me are unnecessary, it gives me great pleas- 
ure to introduce to you Rev. E. Victor Bigelow, of An- 
dover, formerly of Cohasset. 

ADDRESS BY REV. E. VICTOR BIGELOW, 

Author of a Narrative History of Cohasset, 1898 

I am very glad to be here today as your speaker, 
though it may be as a sort of accident. Having acci- 
dentally discovered that Captain John Smith discovered 
Cohasset, it is necessary for me to be here today to make 
good for that discovery. 

It is a pleasure to observe how much Cohasset has 
improved since I got out of it. These people continue 
the good traditions of days gone by and carry forward 
the promise of an immeasurable future when I see 
these beautified estates, this pretty harbor recently dredged 
and studded with channel lights, these uniformed police 
and well-equipped firemen, I am convinced that Cohasset 
is in the forefront now, as it has been in the past and as we 
hope it always will be. 

10 



It is a mark of conscious achievement for any com- 
munity to lay emphasis upon its origin. The discovery of 
a place can be of no concern until that place has come to 
mean something either to itself or to some wider area of 
life. On both of these counts the town of Cohasset is 
amply justified in emphasizing its first appearance upon 
the map. As a self-sustaining and competent municipality 
it guards the happiness of its several thousand citizens 
and vindicates the admiration of those men who first 
viewed its fair harbor three hundred years ago. 

In the second place, its influence upon the larger area 
of life in this commonwealth and nation heaps up its 
ground of self respect to a measure unusual for towns of 
its size. That influence is impossible to identify in recent 
years because its life is so inextricably interwoven with 
that of the metropolis of Boston ; but in the years gone by 
there were generations of sea captains and sailors who 
made this harbor known up and down the mackerel and 
cod banks of America, and who bore our flag from this 
port of entry into the harbors of the world. I fancy I 
can hear now the chopping of broad axes and the sharp 
echo of their calking mallets as the ancestors of our Bates, 
Towers, Pratts, Stoddards and other families built and 
launched into these waters their worthy quota of the 
world's commerce. 

There is one contribution of this town to the political 
development of our nation which has fascinated me since 
first I found it. Our harbor lay just on the border be- 
tween the Plymouth colony and the Massachusetts 
colony; and in the disputes that raged for many years 
over the ownership of the marsh hay at the mouth of the 
Conohasset River, these sturdy colonists settled their 
dispute, not by appealing to the King nor to any other 
authority beyond the sea, but by appointing a joint com- 
mission of the two colonies to adjust their differences. 
This joint commission may be fairly considered the fore- 
runner of the later colonial commissions that settled their 
larger disputes, and the forerunner of our Colonial Con- 
gress that was followed by the Congress of the United 
States. 

The interest of this occasion is also enhanced by the 
historical significance of the man whose discovery we are 

11 



now commemorating. Captain John Smith is probably 
the most famous of all the men concerned in the settle- 
ment of the Atlantic coast. It has been said that no 
man can reach distinction who bears the name of Smith 
— he is doomed to be one of an innumerable and 
indistinguishable mass; but our work this day is to 
change that doom of the Smiths by giving distinction 
to one of them who well deserves it. I remember 
with what a thrill of delight I discovered eighteen 
years ago when writing the history of this town that 
Captain Jolm Smith came into this harbor six years be- 
fore our Pilgrim forefathers landed in Plymouth. His 
adventure with Pocahontas has identified him so much 
with Virginia that people are usually surprised to be told 
that he was also the chief patron and promoter of New 
England. But such he was. In the year 1614, five years 
after his exasperating misfortunes in Virginia, he came 
with two ships for some London merchants to the Island 
of Monhiggan on the coast of Maine with a plan to capture 
whales and to seek for gold or copper mines. The whales 
gave them a jolly chase, but wouldn't be caught. The 
gold and copper were also as shy that year as now; so the 
sailors were put to the task of catching cod and pollock 
for a salable cargo. But Captain Smith was not merely 
a fisherman, he had the instincts of an explorer and a 
colonist. 

With eight men, therefore, he set out, leaving thirty- 
seven to fish the bay, while he and his picked crew in a 
small boat scrutinized carefully the shore for many days 
from Maine to Cape Cod. Twenty -five harbors he 
sounded, and thirty Indian settlements, averaging about 
one hundred savages he saw. He bartered many trinkets 
for eleven hundred beaver skins, one hundred martens 
and the same number of otter skins. 

But the most valuable product of this trip was the 
remarkably accurate map he made of our Massachusetts 
Bay. It was the first good chart in existence; and what 
appeals to us is the fact that Cohasset harbor was on that 
map, emerging for the first time out of the unknown into 
sight of civilized men. In his description of New Eng- 
land he gave the name of this Indian settlement as 
Quonahasit and told how one of the savages angered 

12 



in a quarrel crossed the harbor in a canoe with three 
companions and from their ambush of rocks shot their 
arrows at Smith and his men. Although we have no 
definite date, it seems probable that this event took 
place in the month of July, for Smith sailed for Eng- 
land on the eighteenth of August. With wise forethought 
to perpetuate his worthy effort, Captain Smith submitted 
his map to Prince Charles, afterwards Charles First, 
King of England, but then a lad of fifteen years. He 
asked the Prince to replace the barbarous Indian names 
for their villages by more f amiUar English words in order 
that in time to come the people who might live here 
should know Prince Charles as their godfather. 

Thus from the Penobscot River to Cape Cod the 
cities of England and Scotland were placed by the boyish 
fancies of Prince Charles. I have to congratulate you 
that Cohasset received for its name the greatest appella- 
tion of all. "London" was the name given to this village 
and "Point Murry" to the tip of the Glades. Perhaps the 
famous Murray, the "Good Regent of Scotland," was thus 
commemorated. But why should our Indian village be 
called "London' .'' Was it because there were many Indians 
here? Was it because Captain Smith told the Prince such a 
vivid story of his visit with the Quonahasits that the place 
was most deeply impressed upon the Prince's mind? What- 
ever reason or psychological cause may be assigned, we 
are privileged to take the big name as a compliment and 
we will respond this day by magnifying the name of our 
discoverer. 

About two generations ago there was a spasm of 
historical scholarship that prided itself on smashing popu- 
lar idols. The story of Captain John Smith and Poca- 
hontas was such a romantic darling from our pioneer days 
that it fell victim readily to the Scholar's Inquisition. 
In scrutinizing Smith's various accounts, there were found 
earlier ones without the story of Pocahontas and several 
apparent discrepancies. The story itself is full of mysteri- 
ous, savage incidents and it is found in company with 
Smith's other stories of adventure with Turks and pirates 
in which there are so many marvelous escapes that the 
reader's credulity is considerably taxed. But to turn 
skeptic because of marvels is no credit to scholarship. 

13 



Our own New England historian, John Fiske, has sturdily 
led out the forces of recovery until we can read once more 
without blind prejudice Captain Smith's simple accounts of 
his own adventures. "There is no trace of boastfulness," 
says Fiske, "in freedom from egotistic self consciousness, 
Smith's writings remind one strongly of such books as 
the 'Memoirs of General Grant.' " 

Our hero was of the common stock of English yeomen 
from Lincolnshire, the home of the people who came to 
settle this region afterwards in the year 1633 at Bare 
Cove, now Hingham. He was left an orphan in his early 
teens and soon rebelled against the humdrum life of an 
apprentice. His eager and irrepressible vitality pushing 
him into a life of adventure, he became a soldier of fortune, 
a knight errant, in Holland, France, Italy and Hungary. 
Captured by the Turks, he was sold into slavery with his 
head shaved and an iron collar locked upon his neck. 
Here he was treated worse than a dog until he turned in 
rage one day and killed his master, the Pasha of Nalbrits. 
Dressing hastily in the Turkish costume and mounting 
the horse of his dead persecutor, he rode sixteen days to 
safety among the Russians, and, there relieved of his iron 
collar, he returned a free man, sobered, but not broken in 
spirit, to the land of his birth. He was barely twenty- 
three years of age, but had been drenched by the bloodiest 
experiences of a soldier on land and of a pirate on the 
seas. Smith had nothing more to learn of the deviltry 
of his age and its violence. But his ambition found soon 
a new sphere. 

The intrepid Captain Gosnold had just returned in 1602 
from explorations of the new continent across the Atlantic 
and his account fascinated Smith with a new sort of enter- 
prise. Our hero conceived the scheme of establishing a new 
realm to the credit of the English nation. He rose out 
of the class of adventurers into the higher enterprise of a 
colonizer. Simultaneously with certain other sturdy 
Englishmen, he felt the fascination of settling the strange 
new continent with stock that might be loyal to the King 
of England. The Virginia enterprise was started and 
Smith with his friends ardently espoused it, becoming 
exiled upon these savage shores to make good their pur*- 
pose of carving out a new realm for the King of England, 

14 



Two terrible years at Jamestown showed the untiring 
energy and sagacity of Captain Smith. His genius in 
deahng with the strange red men of the forest, as well as 
his tact in controlling the unruly spirits of lawless English 
adventurers, made him unquestionably the founder of 
that colony. He was governor of Virginia at a time of 
greater perplexity and of more desperate problems than 
ever have confronted a governor of Virginia. He was not 
fully appreciated by the authorities in England and was 
returned under serious criticism. But critics or no critics, 
his passion to colonize was irrepressible. 

The new project of settling northern Virginia was 
eagerly espoused, and although without means to equip 
his vessels, he still toiled as a promoter. He conceived 
and pushed the scheme of the two promoting companies 
for settlement of the region now called New England. 
The London company and the Plymouth company both 
were fired with ambition to exploit the new shore for gain. 
But Captain Smith held out no expectations of gold or 
silver mines. He was a sober colonizer, advocating sub- 
stantial industries and not tempting those adventurers 
who might come to plunder the natives as Spaniards had 
done in Mexico and Peru for a whole century. Our hero 
pleaded for men and women who would settle with cattle 
and with seeds to stock the soil. He advocated catching 
and drying fish, cutting timber, quarrying useful rock, and 
sober farming. In dealing with the Indians, his plan was 
to cultivate friendly relations that a long and profitable 
intercourse might be developed. He surveyed and mapped 
the coast for settlement, and gave to it the name it 
bears today, New England. 

It was not a misnomer for the Plymouth company to 
call him Admiral of New England, for his was the chart 
that guided the vessels of all who settled by those waters. 
Though Smith never commanded a ship of the twenty 
that were promised him when his title was conferred, his 
enthusiasm and guiding genius permeated the whole flood 
of immigration that followed the Pilgrim Fathers. Dur- 
ing the sixteen years from the time he discovered Cohasset, 
Captain Smith talked and wrote incessantly throughout 
Old England for the settlement of New England. He 
printed and distributed more than seven thousand books 

16 



and maps among all people from the King down to the 
most insignificant toiler whom he might imbue with the 
scheme of building a new realm for Englishmen. 

Without any schooling worthy of the name, he wrote 
clear and fascinating English for all to read. At a time 
when coarse and offensive remarks were common in print, 
his utterances were so pure and cleanly that no expurgating 
is needed. Having lived for half his career amongst violent 
and brutal men, he dealt with others in the fairness of a 
gentleman, and his respect for women was unimpeachable. 
His work was unprofitable to his own pocket, and it 
seemed to him so ineffectual that he said sadly, "It availed 
no more than to hew rocks with oyster shells." 

But when we look back over these three hundred 
years and behold the great realm of English-speaking 
people that Captain Smith advocated so unceasingly, 
when we imagine what this United States might have 
been if Spanish and French settlements had prevailed, 
instead of the English, we cannot withhold our humble 
recognition of Captain John Smith, "Governor of Virginia 
and Admiral of New England," as the chief promoter and 
colonizer of our Atlantic seaboard. Our belated acknowl- 
edgments of Smith's significance seems to be almost a 
fulfillment of Smith's prophetic belief that a judgment 
day, a day of dome, would some day vindicate him. 

When he was discouraged in his last years because he 
seemed to be unappreciated, he wrote the dirge with which 
I will close. 



The Sea Marke 
Written by Captain John Smith, 1630 

Aloofe aloofe, and come no neare, 
The dangers do appeare; 

Which if my ruine had not beene 
You had not scene: 

I only lie upon this shelfe 
To be a marke to all 
Which on the same might fall 

That none may perish but my self e. 

16 



If in or outward you be bound 

Doe not forget to sound; 
Neglect of that was cause of this 

To steare amisse. 
The seas were calme, the wind was faire 

That made me so secure, 

That now I must indure 
All weathers, be they foule or faire. 



The Winter's cold, the Summer's heat 

Alternatively beat 
Upon my bruised sides; that rue 

Because too true 
That no releefe can ever come. 

But why should I despaire? 

Being promised so faire, 
That there shall be a day of Dome ! 



UNVEILING 
Addkess by Dr. Oliver H. Howe 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The selection of a person to unveil this memorial 
involved some deliberation. It was desired to find some 
one connected with the Smith family, who was also a 
descendant of the early settlers. Such a one was found 
in Mr. Gilbert S. Tower, for his mother was named Smith 
and his father is named Tower. He thus represents the 
early settlers of Hingham, of which Cohasset was formerly 
a part. 

Personally, I have a lingering fancy that Mr. Tower 
may have an ancestral connection with Captain Smith, 
for one of Smith's titles appears in some way to have de- 
scended upon him. Captain Smith, in recognition of his 
explorations along this coast, received the title of Admiral 
of New England. Mr. Tower is Commodore of the Co- 
hasset Yacht Club and therefore in a certain sense Admiral 
of Cohasset. I take pleasure in introducing Mr. Tower, 
and will now ask him to unveil the memorial. 

17 



PRESENTATION 
Address by Dr. Oliver H. Howe 

Mr. Chairman: 

I was appointed by your Board of Selectmen to choose 
a boulder for this memorial, select a location and have a 
suitable tablet prepared. I assure you that this has been 
a pleasant duty. I have selected a Cohasset boulder, 
stained and weathered by the storms and sunshine of 
centuries and moss-grown with age. It is untouched by 
the chisel and is as old as anything in Cohasset. Its 
merits were long ago recognized, for it was chosen to pro- 
tect the front line of an old colonial homestead on King 
Street (the Worrick estate). It formed one side of a 
gateway, opening to the fields, and one end of the boulder 
has been worn and polished by the wheels of ox carts as 
they turned in and out of this gateway. 

The location of the memorial, close by the harbor, 
may be near where Captain Smith landed and also com- 
mands an attractive view of the principal features of the 
harbor. The tablet, beside the title, contains a quotation 
from Captain Smith's Generall Historic describing the 
incident at Quonahasit, in which his quaint and original 
spelling has been carefully retained. 

I now take pleasure in placing this memorial in your 
care and keeping and in that of successive boards of se- 
lectmen to be cared for and preserved for all time. 



ACCEPTANCE 

Address by Mr. Harry E. Mapes, Chairman op 

Selectmen 
Doctor Howe: 

On behalf of the Board of Selectmen, I wish to thank 
you for the work you have performed in bringing about the 
placing of this beautiful boulder and tablet on this loca- 
tion, and to congratulate you on your success in selecting 
the boulder. It seems to me you have chosen the very 
stone intended for the occasion, and the tablet is in ap- 
propriate form and beautiful workmanship. 

18 



I accept, on behalf of the Selectmen, this beautiful 
memorial which marks the discovery of Cohasset by John 
Smith, three hundred years ago, and take it into my care, 
assuring you that I will endeavor to preserve it in every 
way and deliver it to my successor in office. 

Again congratulating you on the completion of your 
work, I wish to assure you of the appreciation of the Board 
of Selectmen and the citizens of the town of Cohasset. 



It 



(COPY OF INSCRIPTION) 



TO COMMEMORATE THE 

DISCOVERY OF COHASSET 

IN 1614 BY 
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH 

PRESIDENT OF VIRGINIA AND 
ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND 

\A/e found the people in those parts very kinde, but in 
their fury no lesse valiant, . . and at quonahasit falling 
out there but with one of them, he with three others 
crossed the harbour in a canow to certaine rockes 
whereby wee must passe, and there let flie their arrowes 
for our shot. till we were out of danger, yet one of 
them was slaine. and another shot through his thigh." 

from his generall historie. 
ERECTED BY THE TOWN— 1914 



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